With Comedy Bang! Bang! in 2009, the Earwolf network a year later, actor-comedian Scott Aukerman helped revolutionize the way comedy is presented with podcasts a booming new outlet. (Photo courtesy of Scott Aukerman)

It’s been almost a decade since actor-comedian Scott Aukerman took a flyer on a radio version of the Comedy Death-Ray show he’d co-founded at the Upright Citizens Brigade Theatre in Los Angeles. There was no money, but he was working a lot at the time. It was a decision, made almost by accident, that in time made him a big deal in the podcasting boom to come.

“Pretty much the second week we decided to podcast it,” he says of the May 2009 debut of the show on Indie 103.1, by then an internet-only station. “I had known what a podcast was, but really only one of my friends had one, a guy named Jimmy Pardo, who does a show called Never Not Funny, still does it. So when we said, ‘Hey, let’s podcast the radio show,’ I was like, ‘Yeah, sure, I like podcasts, let’s do it.’

“And I found out pretty quickly from those analytics how much more popular a podcast – that anyone around the world could listen to at the time of their choosing – was than an internet radio show that people had to listen to while you were doing it.”

The podcast, which eventually adopted the name Comedy Bang! Bang!, took off. A year later Aukerman co-founded Earwolf, which remains the premier podcasting network for comedy. Comedy Bang! Bang! jumped to television for a five-year run on the IFC network.

While true-crime, politics, sports and many other matters have flourished in podcasting, Aukerman says that in his world, comedy, it’s been a revolutionary development.

“It’s just the most consequential technological leap to happen in comedy since maybe the advent of television or the comedy LP,” he says. “It’s really been something that’s made comedy explode around the world.”

Part of that is the low cost of entering the podcasting marketplace in contrast to television shows or movies, which are hugely expensive to make.

“Even when Comedy Bang! Bang! was turned into a television show, and we had a pretty low budget, our budget was still $300,000 an episode,” he says. “The budget to do a podcast is really low. We take pride on our network at Earwolf in making sure that everything sounds really good. But really, if you wanted to do a podcast you could record it on your computer mic, or go back in time and buy a cheap mic at Radio Shack.

“So podcasts are really cheap and they can be anything you want,” Aukerman says. “There’s just incredible freedom where you can do whatever it is you want, you can say whatever you want. And you can do it relatively cheaply and just put it up there on the internet and people all around the world can find.

“Suddenly you have fans everywhere from this.”

That’s the flip side of the impact of comedy podcasting on the funny business. Never before have comedians had as many opportunities to build audiences and perform so widely, Aukerman says.

Before podcasting brought greater exposure to more and more comedians, you either performed in your hometown and hoped to break out some way some day, or if you were lucky enough to get a comedy booking agent you might build up to out-of-town weekend gigs, he says.

“That’s purely because people don’t know who you are,” Aukerman says. “I would say the average person in the U.S. knows five comedians at any time. They can fit five comedians into their brain. Most people know who Chris Rock is, they know who Amy Schumer is, they know who Louis C.K. is. I’m trying to think of any other two. Sarah Silverman they probably know. I’m not sure.

“So it’s really hard to build up an audience. Before podcasting, you can’t just travel into Chicago, say, and go, ‘Hey everybody, a comedian is in town!’”

When you did show up, unknown to the locals, it was hit or miss whether the audience would even care, says Aukerman. They’d be out for a night on the town and if you made them laugh, great; if you didn’t, the drinks made it palatable.

“All of that really changed now with podcasting because now podcasters and comedians who podcast can look at their analytics and say, ‘Wow, here are the towns where the most people listen to the show,’” Aukerman says. “Now I can go out and tour with Comedy Bang! Bang! and fill up 1,000- or 2,000-seat theaters. Just purely by me saying on the podcast, ‘Hey, tickets are going on sale.’ There’s a market for it.

“And that’s been really powerful for comedians. They no longer have to just go out there in front of strangers who may or may not like what they’re doing, and hope that it all goes well.”

Pee Cast Blast ’18, like other live podcasting festivals, brings that full circle, its podcast creators coming together to do what they do in the studio live on a stage.

In addition to Comedy Bang! Bang! the event features such programs as the Andy Daly Podcast Pilot Project in which Daly and co-host Matt Gourley make each episode as a fictional brand-new podcast hosted by characters Daly creates, or Off Book: The Improvised Musical where each episode Jessica McKenna, Zach Reino and a variety of guests – comedian and beatboxer Reggie Watts on Saturday – make up a new musical theater show on the spot.

“Everyone on Pee Cast Blast, they’re all really incredible live performers, and the shows that we picked are shows that work really super-well in a live setting,” Aukerman says. “That’s kind of what makes it a little different from not only stand-up comedy but people out there doing live podcasts which end up being conversations with people just sitting there.”

As for where podcasting goes in its second full decade, Auckerman says he hopes it avoids a big money fate in which corporate players and big celebrities show up to dominate the landscape. Its simplicity and the accessibility he talked about earlier make him believe that won’t happen.

“The cool thing about podcasting is the sense of discovery,” he says. “It’s such an incredible art form where people are experimenting and doing whatever they want.

“The sense of discovery out there, of finding something you can say, ‘Oh wow, this was made just for me.’ That’s what podcasting is all about.”

Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.